That link is one of a few articles floating out there in cyberspace of Apple possibly looking to buy Sony or EA.
I personally don’t see it happening. Apple’s history suggests that they like to acquire smaller companies instead of big huge conglomerates. But I guess the rumor persists because people have heard that Apple wants to get into gaming.
That got me thinking… could Unity be on their radar? It would make a lot more sense than EA or Sony.
Personally i generally dislike one company taking over the other, despite what is announced in press releases, in most cases it does not turn out for the better for the end consumer at the end. There are few exceptions to the rule of course.
That said, i´d still also make a seperation between single platform companies buying other single platform companies and the other case of a single platform holder buying out what was a multi platform provider before.
For Apple it would be huge to buy Sony, EA or Unity; for users of hardware/ software made by these companies it could be a disaster, since, well, it would probably mean that the stuff wouldn´t be available anymore other on Apple devices.
Something like this topic is really a total wild speculation topic until there are more solid facts.
And since we´re on a wild speculation topic, well, i´d go with saying that probably UT, EA and Sony could actually all be quite interesting for Apple, all for different reasons.
Buying EA would give them a way more powerful stance in the games business, they´d secure getting a lot more “AAA” and “casual” games while at the same time also having control over their contenders suddenly getting way less of those.
Buying Unity (if UT was even for sale) would of course give them a great game creation middleware for the iOS platforms, while again ensuring that their contenders don´t get that anymore.
Buying Sony would give them a lot of bulk (i don´t see how they´d for example want to continue to sell PS3s then) but also A LOT of force and content in many of the sectors they are active in. Like for example one could dream up a new gen of bravia tvs has the apple tv built in. Or hey, there was that kinda big catalogue and might Sony had in the movie and music industry, no? Would be nice to have more direct access and control over that 
Yeah, can be fun to speculate wildly, will also be interesting to talk about the facts if it ever comes to that state =)
To end on a more realistic note: With the size and domination Apple gets to in various sectors i´d find it unlikely that they´d actually get it approved without issues to swallow up a company in the size of Sony or EA, since it could in some areas get seen as getting to monopoly state to some extend.
Also, yeah, like you and this article, i find it fun to in between think about such rumors as a what if scenario but in reality i´d find it quite unlikely that Apple could or would really want to buy any of the really big companies whose names are floating around for a possible aquisition by Apple now. I mean, yeah, many companies could be quite interesting to them for many reasons, but many would also be too expensive, are not buyable for one reason or the other or would make Apple loose a lot of its focus on fewer things manner.
Apple buys a good bunch of companies but as that article says, usually its way smaller ones.
Umm… why is it people live in such small worlds that they don’t understand how big something really is!?
Sony is a HUGE company! When every household has no Sony TVs, BluRay players, phones, stereos, computers, etc…etc… etc… then maybe… just maybe, Apple might be in a position to “buy” just the console division. Until then, don’t expect it to happen.
As for EA, doubtful, too. EA makes its money selling on every platform except Apple platforms. EA wants to know how to make money on Apple platforms, because they like money, but they don’t make enough to somehow become platform-exclusive. And I seriously doubt Apple would buy anyone who wasn’t dedicated strictly to Apple, since they wholeheartedly believe they have the absolute best platform for everything (except that gaming thing that’s a fad, as far as Jobs is concerned). A more likely scenario is Disney buying EA.
Apple is huger. Sony has a market cap of $30 billion or so, Apple has $50 billion in cash (and a far larger market cap).
Indeed.
–Eric
Actually you are wrong, sony has over 100billion while apple only ~40bil
They can’t buy sony, sony is way bigger than apple and has much more markets.
Sorry apple, can’t touch this.
Buying EA wouldn’t make much sense, as they’re spread over so many platforms. I would instead see them acquiring a hardware company, anything that could take a stab at Nintendo’s market - since if they want to go more seriously into gaming, Nintendo’s going to be their main competitor.
Apple are gonna buy Microsoft …
They’re buying unity. David helg is going to retire on necker island sipping pina coladas.
hehe
Apple has 50B to spend and they finally realized the shit load of money that gaming makes you.
So aquiring something large makes sense.
If I had to guess, then I would assume that they will try to get Foxconn to prevent cost ramps due to foxconn raising its prices towards apple or their panel / screen provider to kick out the competition that takes away their production lanes
alternative would be an ARM competitor, after they got their “nay get lost” from ARM on this matter (not that apple could have bought them anyway, US and EU anti competition laws would have disallowed that without strict rulings about keeping the designs etc open and accessable which would have made apple not buying them as apple wants domination not happy working with each other)
God, I hope UT never sells out to anyone! I was really tight with Caligari Corporation, and it was a nightmare when they sold out to MS. Everything went to hell. If UT sold out to Apple you could kiss all of the PC folks goodbye. Apple would never own a product that would run on anything but a MAC. IMO Microsoft and Apple are equally as bad, just in different ways. I have a healthy dislike for both of them. If UT did sell out to Apple, that would be a second favorite app of mine that I would have to watch die. One assimilated by the Borg, the other by the Replicators! 
Let’s hope good ol’ Captain Helgason stays at the helm of this ship for many years to come! 
I can see Apple wanting to buy UT. Recent events have made Apple aware of their presence, and how good they are. I hope it doesn’t happen though.
Apple could add value to Sony by sorting out their weak user interfaces, but would inherit a massively different corporate culture would probably frustrate that, plus they have a number of loss-making divisions.
Adobe are a possibility. Win the war by buying the enemy. Return the creative software to Mac focused. Get some real effort put into Flash working properly on Apple platforms.
But more likely, they were referring to smaller acquisitions. Like they have bought an ad-company for iAd and a chip company for the iOS devices. Perhaps a materials company for advancing quality, like they did with the unibody construction (they have already licensed liquidmetal).
No, I’m not wrong. I don’t know where you’re getting your info from; it sounds massively out of date. As of the most recent financial results, Apple has $51 billion cash, and no debt. Sony has debt, and < $20 billion cash. Sony has a market cap of $33 billion, Apple has a market cap of $252 billion. You can easily get that info with publically-available financial data. If it wasn’t realistic that Apple could buy Sony, then Sony’s shares wouldn’t have gone up on the rumors. Whether Sony is physically bigger and in more markets is totally irrelevant. Personally I don’t see it happening; it’s not an Apple thing to do and I can’t really see what they’d gain in the bigger picture. But from a strictly theoretical financial point of view, leaving out all other factors, yes it could actually happen.
–Eric
It’s not just about cash. Sony has a bigger mind share than Apple. So overall Sony is more valuable.
I, for one, hope that Apple buys Sony, EA, and UT. And I expect none of these things to happen.
I don’t see the EA, Sony, or Unity things happening. (Well, with Unity it’s mainly that I wouldn’t want it to happen)
I actually think that Apple would be better off buying off a tiny game publisher and then just stealing away top executives from everyone else.
Whenever I hear of Sony, I can’t help but think of the commercial from the movie Crazy People. LOL 
'Alle Jahre wieder…
for aktYear=0 to currentAge
cntSonyIsDead:+aktYear Mod 2
next
print “Sony is dead for the “+cntSonyIsDead+”. time, again.”
That’s an opinion, and is still not relevant. The fact from a strictly financial point of view is that Apple could theoretically buy Sony…I’m not sure where this denial is coming from. Again, personally I think it would be silly. Extremely interesting, to be sure, but silly.
I have to doubt that UT would sell out to Apple, considering that Apple would likely destroy much of the point of Unity (namely all the cross-platform capabilities, including web publishing, seeing as Apple seems set against plug-ins like that).
–Eric
Well yeah, theoretically anything is possible.
For example, theoretically I could buy Sony for $1. I just need some nice alien friends to do their mind control on the share holders.